The Dresden amen is a sequence of six notes sung by choirs during church services in the German state of Saxony

Saxony

The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....

 from at least the beginning of the 19th century. The motif was particularly associated with the city of Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

, hence it became known as the Dresden amen.

Composition

The Dresden amen was composed by Johann Gottlieb Naumann

Johann Gottlieb Naumann

Johann Gottlieb Naumann was a German composer, conductor, and Kapellmeister.- Life :...

 (1741-1801) for use in the Royal chapel in Dresden. Such was its popularity that it spread to other churches in Saxony, both Catholic

Catholic

The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

 and Lutheran. The "Dresden amen" is actually the second and third amens of a threefold amen.

The sequence is significant in Western classical music

Classical music

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

 because it has been used in various forms by composers since the 19th century.

Use in Classical Music

Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

 used the Dresden amen in his fifth symphony, the "Reformation"

Symphony No. 5 (Mendelssohn)

The Symphony No. 5 in D major/D minor, Op. 107, called the Reformation Symphony, was composed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1830 in honor of the 300th anniversary of the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession. This Confession was a key document of Lutheranism and its Presentation to Emperor Charles V in...

. In the first movement, the theme appears in the strings:


The theme was also used by Richard Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

, most notably in his last opera, Parsifal

Parsifal

Parsifal is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. It is loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the 13th century epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival and his quest for the Holy Grail, and on Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail.Wagner first conceived the work...

. Wagner was a Kapellmeister

Kapellmeister

Kapellmeister is a German word designating a person in charge of music-making. The word is a compound, consisting of the roots Kapelle and Meister . The words Kapelle and Meister derive from the Latin: capella and magister...

 in Dresden from 1842 to 1849, however he would probably have learnt the motif as a boy during his attendance at church in Dresden. It was incorporated into one of his earliest operas Das Liebesverbot

Das Liebesverbot

Das Liebesverbot is an early opera in two acts by Richard Wagner, with the libretto written by the composer after Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. Described as a grosse komische Oper, it was composed in 1834, and Wagner conducted the premiere in 1836 at Magdeburg...

, and also appears in the third act of Tannhäuser

Tannhäuser (opera)

Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...

.

Anton Bruckner

Anton Bruckner

Anton Bruckner was an Austrian composer known for his symphonies, masses, and motets. The first are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, complex polyphony, and considerable length...

 also uses the Dresden amen in the adagio of his last symphony, the 9th

Symphony No. 9 (Bruckner)

Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 9 in D minor is the last Symphony upon which he worked, leaving the last movement incomplete at the time of his death in 1896. The symphony was premiered under Ferdinand Löwe in Vienna in 1903, after Bruckner's death...

, while Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...

 incorporated it into the fourth movement of his First Symphony

Symphony No. 1 (Mahler)

The Symphony No. 1 in D major by Gustav Mahler was mainly composed between late 1887 and March 1888, though it incorporates music Mahler had composed for previous works. It was composed while Mahler was second conductor at the Leipzig Opera, Germany...

 and the last movement of his Second Symphony

Symphony No. 2 (Mahler)

The Symphony No. 2 by Gustav Mahler, known as the Resurrection, was written between 1888 and 1894, and first performed in 1895. Apart from the Eighth Symphony, this symphony was Mahler's most popular and successful work during his lifetime. It is his first major work that would eventually mark his...

. Manuel de Falla

Manuel de Falla

Manuel de Falla y Matheu was a Spanish Andalusian composer of classical music. With Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados and Joaquín Turina he is one of Spain's most important musicians of the first half of the 20th century....

 quoted from it in his incidental music for Calderón de la Barca's El gran teatro del mundo.
Eric Ball

Eric Ball (composer)

Eric Walter John Ball was an English composer and conductor of brass band music.-Selected compositions:*The Triumph of Peace*The Kingdom Triumphant*The Eternal Presence*Journey Into Freedom*The King of Kings...

's tone poem The Kingdom Triumphant, a musical picture of the first and second coming of Christ

Christ

Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...

, uses the Dresden amen prior to the presentation of the hymn Helmsley with its associated words "Lo, He comes with clouds descending".